University of South Carolina Lancaster
Act 629 - Summary Reports on Institutional Effectiveness
Fiscal Year 1998-1999

This summary report for the University of South Carolina Beaufort includes: Student Development (1999/2003)

The following remaining components will be submitted to the Commission of Higher Education by the date annotated: Academic Advising (2001/2005); Transfer Student Success (2001/2003); Library Resources and Services (2000, 2004); and General Education (2002/2006).

USC Lancaster supports the intellectual, personal, physical, and social development of students in recognition of the critical interdependency of each of these areas to student success. By providing opportunities for productive interaction with students, faculty, and staff, USC Lancaster helps students develop a spirit of curiosity, integrity, and confidence in planning and pursuing academic, career and personal goals. USCL provides a variety of student development activities and services, including orientation; academic, career and personal counseling; student activities; health fitness and recreational activities.

Indicators:

1. Students are assisted with enhancing their skills in planning and pursuing academic goal, personal goals, and career planning.

2. Students are assisted with developing social skills, including the ability to work with and relate to others and to appreciate others of diverse backgrounds.

3. Students are assisted with reducing educational stress and levels of academic difficulty.

4. Students increase their participation in student and cultural activities.

Assessment Methods:

New students are administered the College Student Inventory (usaGroup Noel-Levitz) during fall orientations. This information is analyzed to determine the kinds of services to which students are receptive and to recommend areas the campus should address to increase students' potential for success. Students (separate from individual class evaluations) evaluate the University 101 Program. The Counseling Center provides usage data. (The Opportunity Scholars Program and the Academic Success Center will provide usage data beginning 1999.) All reports are utilized to plan the campus's responses to student development needs.

College Student Inventory Results and Recommendations:

(The strength of each recommendation is indicated by its mean priority score: 0=low; 10=high.)

College Student Inventory results are shared with staff and faculty responsible for orientation, recruitment and retention, with University 101 faculty, with Opportunity Scholars Program staff, and provided to the individual student. Results of the CSI are used to plan the curricular and extra-curricular support systems and activities of the campus to encourage student development and student success. Consistently, students report strong needs in the following areas: help in selecting academic programs, discussion about occupational qualifications, help with exam skills, help in meeting new friends, and information about student activities. These needs are addressed through orientation, advising, University 101: The Student in the University, the Counseling Center, the Opportunity Scholars Program, and the Academic Success Center.

One component of orientation is to introduce students to all of the support services and the student organizations on campus. New students are assigned to older students (Peer Advisors at Lancaster) who serve as their mentors during the two-day orientation and beyond are, and they are assigned to trained faculty and staff advisors. Orientation addresses students' needs to meet new friends, receive information about student activities, and to get advice from experienced students.

University 101 faculty to plan the themes for the course and to refer students to other campus services uses CSI results. For example, for 1999, the faculty has designed the class around three themes: Skills for Success, (Setting Goals, Assessing Goals, Assessing Personality, Identifying Work Preferences, and Appreciating Diversity), Strategies for Success (Time Management, Stress Management, Learning Styles, Study Skills, Library Use, and Computer Use), and Choices for Success (Sexual Health, Health and Nutrition, Alcohol and Drugs, and Career Planning). University 101 faculty refer students to the Counseling Center and to the OSP staff for individual discussions of their CSI results. Students who need academic help are referred to the Academic Success Center and the OSP lab as well as encouraged to discuss academic issues with their professors and their advisors. The teaching methodology most utilized in University 101 is group learning whereby students develop group projects and participate in a service experience. All University 101 classes meet at the same time so that all new students can share common experiences, including but not limited to the convocation and the Freshman Reading experience.

Students strongly exhibit the need for career planning and discussion. For this reason, Opportunity Scholars staff were trained by the Counseling Center staff to use and interpret the SIGI+, thus expanding the availability of trained staff to provide this service. The Counseling Center also uses the Strong Campbell as a career assessment tool. In addition to tutoring assistance and cultural activities, the Opportunity Scholars Program will add career activities to its lists of services. Results of the 1998 evaluation of University 101 indicate 90% satisfaction with the program but that students want even greater emphasis on information concerning jobs, majors, salaries, and more Internet instruction.

For 1997, the Counseling Center reported 120 student visits out of 184 CSI inventories, but for 1998 only 75 student visits out of 201 inventories were reported. The University 101 faculty, Counseling Center, and Recruitment and Retention Committee will include this information in our planning for the fall. If students are using the other services in place of the Counseling Center, we will so document. The Opportunity Scholars Program has begun to gather this information.

For 1998-99, USC Lancaster piloted a common hour when no classes are taught in order to encourage greater student participation in cultural and other student activities and to provide greater opportunities for students to interact with faculty and staff. The table below demonstrates the increase in student, faculty and staff participation in out-of-class events:

Nineteen different groups and five different student organizations are currently using the common hour as their meeting or programming time. The faculty voted to continue the common hour for the 1999-00 school year.